IRAN AND THE WORLD IN THE SAFAVID AGE
Abstracts  

Jafarian, Mr. Rasool, Library of Iranian and Islamic History, Qom, Political Relations between Shah Isma'il I and the Mamluks

In 1516/922, less than two decades after the establishment of Safavid regime in 1501/907, the powerful Mamluk government in Egypt and Syria was overthrown by Sultan Selim I.  During these years, Safavid Iran, having common borders with the Mamluks in central and southern parts, had some limited relations with Qansuh al-Ghuri, the last Mamluk sultan.  Despite their quantitative insignificance, these relations have a considerable historical importance. In spite of this, these relations have rarely received the attention of researchers and scholars of the history of Safavids and Mamluks.

The importance of these relations may be perceived by taking the relations among three powerful states of this period and a fourth small state into consideration. The Ottoman regime and those of the Mamluks and the Safavids had created a power triangle with its vertexes in Istanbul, Syria and Tabriz.  The fourth was the Zulqadr state, which was situated in Anatolia between these powerful states.

However, there existed several negative and hostile relationships in the region.

Firstly, the Zulqadr regime, attempting to preserve its territorial integrity, was at war with the other three regimes, and, as a result, all three and even other marginal states had sufficient justification to invade Zulqadr territory.  Secondly, there was the religious conflict between Ottomans and Safavids, which was a part of Shi'i-Sunni confrontation and was deeply rooted in history. Thirdly, Ottoman antagonism against Iran, Egypt and Syria, emanated from Ottoman expansionist policy, and later was even considered by them as their natural right.

These three hostile relationships justified the Ottoman's expansionist ambitions, and paved the way for tremendous battles in the region.  At the beginning, the Zulqadr state, the common enemy of all these states, fell victim to Ottoman's expansionist policies.  Next, the Safavid regime suffered a terrible defeat and suffered tremendous losses at Chaldiran, but was not overthrown.  Finally, the Mamluk regime was brought to an end by the Ottomans and was overthrown in an astonishing manner after almost three centuries.

The overthrow of the Zulqadr state, which was small and insignificant, did not require any justification for the Ottomans.  The attack against the Safavids could be justified by the severe religious conflict, but how could they justify their attack against the Sunni Mamluks, which resulted in the slaughter of more than one hundred and fifty thousand Sunni Muslims in the region?

This paper is an answer to this question.  In fact, Sultan Selim I deceitfully professed that the Mamluk government had made an alliance with Shah Isma'il and intended to assist a Shi'i government.  As a tactic, he began moving towards Iran, while spreading the rumour that Qansuh intended to support Shah Isma'il.  With this justification, he suddenly altered course towards Aleppo, invaded Syria and Egypt, overthrew the Mamluk regime and killed the Mamluk Sultan.  The magnitude of this triumph and its tremendous economic and social consequences made Sultan Selim abandon his plans for invading Iran.  In fact, on achieving his ambition, Sultan Selim forgot the Sunni-Shi'i conflict, and knowing that Iran did not bring him any economic advantage, decided not to invade Iran!

In this essay, the relations among all four states, and the missions of Safavid envoys to Syria and Cairo, are studied on the basis of Mamluk and Safavid sources.  An interesting literary event, concerning Shah Isma'il's letter to the Egyptian Sultan, is fully discussed.  In fact, Safavid-Mamluk relations are rarely taken into consideration by Safavid sources and the main part of our knowledge about the subject is based on Mamluk histories.

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